Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Stewart still plans to race at LVMS

Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Tony Stewart has no plans to slow down this winter now that he has captured the NASCAR Winston Cup championship.

After testing Monday and today at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Stewart plans to honor an earlier commitment to run in the USAC Sprint and Midget Car Series races at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, Nov. 30.

Until Sunday, Stewart counted his 1995 USAC season as the highlight of his racing career. That year, Stewart became the first driver to win championships in the National Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown series in the same year. He also won the Indy Racing League championship in 1997.

"I guess if I had to retype my resume tomorrow, I'd put it number one," Stewart said of his Winston Cup championship. "They've all been hard to acquire; they all had their unique set of circumstances and obstacles and challenges to accomplish the goals.

"To say that the Winston Cup championship isn't my greatest accomplishment in racing right now, I think I'd look pretty stupid if I didn't say that and my heart tells me that it is."

Stewart is expected to take part in an all-driver autograph session prior to the Nov. 30 races at The Bullring.

The Las Vegas native made good on his prediction by winning Sunday's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway -- but the 24-year-old Busch probably didn't foresee winning three of the final five races of the season to hit the four-win mark.

"It was just an awesome year," said Busch, who finished third in points in his second full season in the series. "What a transition from that rookie year."

Busch, who was 27th in points as a rookie, credited team owner Jack Roush's decision to move Mark Martin's crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, to Busch's team last winter as the reason for his breakthrough season.

"Jimmy Fennig's control of people (and) the way that he approaches races and race tracks gave me the key to victory every time that I jumped in that race car this year and (Sunday) was no different," Busch said.

"To be able to bring the Little Tikes Ford home to victory lane at the Ford 400, to cap off the run that we've put together in the final quarter of the season ... I'm just so happy I'm too excited to put together the right words."

Drivers have complained recently about the large numbers of fans that swarm the garage area each race weekend. The issue came to a head in August when Tony Stewart was accused of shoving a female fan at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Stewart was cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident, but NASCAR vowed to look into who gets garage passes to its Winston Cup races.